


and i saw stars

by stevenstamkos



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Character Study, Edmonton Oilers, Friendship, Gen, M/M, NHL Trade(s), New Jersey Devils
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: Nico grins at him, quiet happiness in his eyes, and god he is so fucking eager to please. They always are. Taylor used to be, too.“They’re gonna eat you alive, kiddo,” Taylor doesn’t say.Maybe, maybe not. New Jersey isn’t Edmonton.(or: Five first overall picks)





	1. Ryan

**Author's Note:**

> This fic spans years and relationships. It starts as Taylor/Jordan and eventually becomes Taylor/Adam (which is endgame), but the first relationship is also pretty important to the plot. Originally not an AU that is now forced to be AU because Adam Henrique got TRADED as I was finishing up
> 
> Title from "Remember Who I Was" by James Arthur

Taylor knows what it means to be special. Taylor was special once, too. Taylor used to look in the mirror and see the brightness in his eyes, and he’s seen it once, twice, three times, when he used to look at Ryan and Nail and Connor. And now Nico, bright eyes and brighter future, the prodigious heir and savior, and Taylor—

Taylor has seen it before, is all. He knows how it ends.

 

\-- 

 

The new kid’s quiet. That’s probably the first thing Taylor notices about him. It’s a different kind of quietness than general rookie silence. It’s just him, it’s Ryan, all quiet confidence and patience and hopeful optimism.

Taylor likes him very much.

Ryan fits in well with the team, and Renney puts him on a line with Taylor and Jordan. They’re good together, like a well-oiled machine, like clockwork. They just click. People call them the Kidline. It’s cute.

“Best fucking rookie center in the league,” Taylor tells him once, half-drunk after a blowout win, and Ryan flushes and smiles at him.

There aren’t a lot of those—blowout wins, or hell, wins in general—but they’ll come.

 

Jordan asks him early on whether he thinks this is it, the team to win the Cup. It is 2011, and they are still losing, but their line is hot fire. They are unstoppable. They are losing, but the team feels it: like something is changing, like they’ve got to be swinging toward something better. Maybe not this season, but the next maybe, or the one after.

Taylor rests his chin on Jordan’s bare shoulder, stares at the fan of Jordan’s lashes on his cheeks, at Jordan’s hair a mess over his pillow. It is barely morning, and Jordan’s bed is comfortable, and Taylor doesn’t want to leave, ever.

“Yeah,” he says, softly. “Yeah, this is it. This is the fucking team.”

Taylor and Jordan and Ryan—They’re the fucking future. The young, talented, bright hope of the Edmonton Oilers.

Taylor is 20 years old and kind of stupid and so fucking hopeful.

Jordan trails his fingers up Taylor’s back, slow and meaningful, and Taylor thinks about this:

Orange and blue and the huge 14 on Jordan’s back as he skates away, fist held out for the bench. Ryan sliding up to Taylor, mouthguard in one glove and stick in the other, a spark in his eyes. The sound of the goal horn.

The years stretching down the line, as many years as they can eke out together.

Taylor knows he shouldn’t think about it too hard, not with all the neverending uncertainty about contracts and trades, but—Edmonton wanted him, wanted Ryan, wanted Jordan. That’s gotta count for something.

On the nightstand, his phone buzzes with a text from Ryan. Taylor checks it for a second before rolling out of bed and throwing on a pair of sweats—his or Jordan’s, he doesn’t stop to check and he doesn’t care either way—and opening the front door.

“I brought breakfast,” Ryan says, shoving his way in, and Taylor lets him.

Jordan stumbles out of his room, wearing Taylor’s sweats, which means that Taylor must be wearing his. There is a pillow crease on his cheek, stubble on his jaw, and a smile on his face. He makes a beeline for the bags that Ryan places on the kitchenette.

It's not like a great breakfast, but it sure beats the Kraft Dinner they had last night.

Taylor sees Ryan’s eyes linger for a second on the #4 stamped over Jordan’s thigh. He doesn’t say anything though.

Ryan doesn’t ask questions, not about Taylor or about Jordan or about Taylor and Jordan. Ryan is good like that.

 

Taylor is in the bathroom, poking at his swollen cheek, when there’s a knock on his door. He opens it to Ryan’s calm face.

It’s a good thing he didn’t blurt out Jordan’s name then.

Ryan is wearing sweats and socks and flops, and he looks tired from the long roadie, paler than usual. His hair is getting a little long in front. His eyes flick over Taylor’s face, searching for a second, before he steps past Taylor into the room.

“What’s up?” Taylor asks, smiling wide and ignoring the twinge of pain.

Ryan holds out a ziplock bag full of crushed ice. “Stopped at the ice machine on my way here,” he says. He clears his throat, almost self-conscious, until Taylor takes the makeshift ice pack.

“Thanks. I was gonna...”

“I know. Decided to save you the trip and see how you were doing. You were great tonight.”

“So were you.”

He stares at Taylor as Taylor takes a seat on the bed and carefully presses the ice to his face.

“You didn’t have to, you know,” Ryan says softly.

Taylor holds the ice pack in place and grins up at him, the confident, half-euphoric grin that comes when his blood is still hot after a win. His cheek is starting to really throb under the ice, but he barely feels it right now. Later, he’ll probably notice every muscle pulling in his face, which is what the ice is for, but right now, nothing matters but the feeling of two points on the road.

It was a hard-won two points, a rare two points. He’ll take it where he can get it.

“Course I had to,” he says. His fingers are numb with cold and he switches the pack to his other hand.

Ryan sits down next to him, the mattress bouncing a little. He is wearing mismatched socks on his feet, but they’re not like, very obviously mismatched. It’s a tiny detail that no one would notice unless they were staring. Taylor is staring.

“You’re not a fighter, Hallsy.”

“Neither are you.”

“I can take care of myself. It was just a little dirty cross-check, and I could’ve—I would’ve dealt with it.”

Ryan isn’t mad, Taylor thinks. Ryan doesn’t really get mad; he’s too level-headed for that. He’s just—He probably wants to prove himself. Like Taylor did last year, wanting to fight every fight himself, to prove that he’s everything that everyone said and more.

He hears it in Ryan’s words. _I can fight my own battles._

“I know you can take care of yourself,” Taylor says, much more serious now. He meets Ryan’s eyes, even across the distance between them. “You don’t have to do everything yourself though, you know? Let the rest of us have some fun out there.”

He hopes Ryan hears the words behind his words too. _I was there. I learned to need them, too._

Because Taylor does. He needs them, this whole fucking team, the air punched out of him with every hit he takes for them, chasing the puck and looking over and seeing the bench and the boys and the sticks on the ice. He needs them, every player, Gags and Whits and Ryan. And Jordan, of course.

Taylor is still learning it, how to let himself need them as much as they need him.

Ryan blinks. His tongue pokes out, quick over his lips, and then he nods. “Yeah, okay.”

The ice pack is melting fast, and the ziplock bag has a leak in it somewhere because Taylor has nearly a handful of water now, dripping down his face and over his neck. He tosses it on the counter and lets Ryan check out what is probably not yet a bruise on his face.

“Thanks for that,” Ryan says, fingers light on Taylor’s jaw, before letting go.

Taylor only jerks his head in what is supposed to be a _you’re welcome_. He doesn’t need to be thanked for having Ryan’s back. It was a gut-reaction, something he’d always do. They’re supposed to save Edmonton, you know.

At the door, Ryan checks his pocket and turns back for a second. “Hey, any chance you got something that can break a twenty?”

Taylor checks his wallet and shakes his head, and Ryan thanks him again and tells him to have a good night, and that is that.

 

Taylor opens his door to Ryan’s red face.

“Do you by any chance know what to do with 350 nickels?” Ryan breaks in.

This is not what Taylor was expecting. In fact, Taylor was not expecting Ryan at all, not after he’d just left like five minutes ago. “Why do you have so many nickels?”

“Wanted to get a water bottle but I only had a twenty. Vending machine gave me back my change in nickels.”

And then Taylor has to hold onto the door as he laughs and laughs, and Ryan is smothering a laugh too, shamefaced and defeated by a fucking _vending machine_ in a Nashville hotel, and the sober tone of the night is forgotten.

Taylor fetches an ice bucket and passes it to Ryan, shaking his head in disbelief at the kid’s luck.

“I passed Jordan on the way here, by the way,” Ryan adds, bucket in hand. “Think he saw me and ducked back into his room. You might wanna text him and tell him it’s okay to come over now. I’ll get out of your hair.”

He winks at Taylor, a horrible little thing, and leaves to fetch his pile of nickels.

Taylor picks up his phone.


	2. Nail

With the lockout, Taylor doesn’t really meet Nail until the start of the shortened season, in January.

Nail is a great guy. Like, a really fucking great guy, energetic and cheerful and young and always ready to lighten up the room, even as they lose and lose.

“Just happy to be here,” he tells the reporters, and Taylor has heard hundreds of guys say that, has said it himself a dozen times, but he doesn’t think anyone has meant it as much as Nail. There’s just so much energy coming from the guy, and he rambles a lot in pretty good English, always brightening the room with how excited he is.

Taylor knows what everyone is saying. The Oilers have picked first for three years in a row, enough to build a winning franchise for years to come. This has to be it. It has to be.

 

10 seconds left, down 1-0. Faceoff in the offensive zone with the goalie pulled. The Oilers win it back, scramble in the high slot with bodies everywhere, and Taylor spins and shoots.

It goes off the Kings goalie. The rebound goes straight to Nail, and Taylor doesn’t see it, but Nail swats the puck out of midair and past Quick for his second of the season. 4.7 seconds left in regulation.

The arena is fucking thundering. It is so loud, the fans going nuts, and Nail is pumped up on the energy of the place. It is the third game of his NHL career and he has scored against a division rival, the defending Cup champions, to tie the game. Taylor tries to catch Nail for a hug, but Nail breaks away and falls to his knees, sliding from blue line to blue line.

It’s a hell of a goal celebration.

They win in OT, Gags getting the winner on the power play, and god, new season new them, right? New season new Oilers.

The next day, the talking heads are everywhere. Everyone has something to say about Nail’s celly. Was it arrogant? A shout-out to Theo Fleury? At all appropriate for a tying goal this early in the season from a fresh-faced rookie?

“I scored, so I was pretty excited,” Nail says when they ask.

And like, Taylor gets it. He gets being young and being bright, and he remembers what it’s like to score a goal like that. Christ, Taylor’s only 21. For sure he remembers what it was like two years ago.

He’s not super tight with Nail, but he makes sure to let him know he has his back.

“Just ignore what they say,” he says, carefully careless, because Taylor has spent the past two years learning how.

“I try to ignore the media, but it’s hard to ignore when my teammates talk about it.”

Which is like, so fucking stupid and unnecessary and _disloyal_ , in Taylor’s opinion. He makes sure to tell Nail that.

Nail still looks kinda bummed out, but at least he hasn’t lost that spark of good humor in his eye. “Maybe everyone will forget about it soon. Lots of hockey left to play. It’s okay.”

Taylor nods. Sure thing. It’s the Edmonton media. They’ve always got something new to pick on.

It doesn’t go away though, and Taylor sees the way Nail’s eyes shutter a bit, drawing back each time it’s brought up and chewed over by a dozen talking heads. But he stays bright and good-natured the whole time, even though there’s always some idiot shoving his opinion god knows where, and with the team playing below .500, there’s not much else to focus on besides their flaws.

They don’t make the playoffs this year, either.

 

“It doesn’t get easier, does it?” Nail asks him suddenly.

Taylor looks up from his phone, surprised. He figured Nail would’ve shot off to go hang out with Galchenyuk after the Habs game. What he did not expect was for Nail to seek him out, and Taylor feels vaguely embarrassed that he’s been caught fucking around on twitter in the corner where hopefully no one will find him and drag him out to talk about yet another road loss, etcetera, etcetera.

(Look, Taylor doesn’t hide _often_ , but it’s his fourth season of doing this and he needs a fucking break sometimes.)

“What doesn’t…?” he asks hesitantly, even though he has some idea.

Nail puts his hands in his pockets. He’s grown a lot since last season, had to under the intense pressure that never really lets up in Edmonton, but there’s still traces of the wide-eyed rookie under there sometimes. Still that good humor and upbeat mentality. Guy can’t be brought down. Doesn’t mean he’s stupid though.

“I mean the criticism. The questions. The—” He waves a hand behind him, in the direction of the cameras and mics being packed away.

Taylor looks at Nail, and he knows the pressure of the words on the inside of his skull. Feels it, like a familiar sliding edge, below the layers of his boundless optimism and excitement.

_Should have drafted a defenseman._

It’s not unjustified though, is the thing. They need defense, and Steve Tambellini didn’t get them that when he took Taylor or Ryan or Nail. They’ve got Darnell Nurse from the last draft, but he’s no Ryan Murray, and Nurse is still in the OHL where he’s not having an impact on the team. It’s not Nail’s fault that he doesn’t fit, but since when has hockey ever been fair?

“It gets a little easier,” Taylor says, Taylor lies.

 

Taylor and Jordan are still leading the team in points, one-two just like almost every other year, but they still end up dead last in the West. This is something that Taylor is getting uncomfortably used to, along with the rotating door of coaches and GMs and fringe players.

“They’re gonna trade me,” Nail tells him one day after yet another loss, and Taylor nods.

Someone big is going to go. Everyone’s been saying it’s gonna be Nail; no surprises there. The business side of hockey isn’t really something they’re good at predicting, but Taylor’s been around long enough to know the signs.

Ryan’s talked about it with him a bit, tired and kind of beaten down, the bill of his snapback drooping a little. He’s wearing it backwards, and it makes him look a little younger. There’s nothing young about Ryan’s voice though, when he tells Taylor that he’s aware he’s being shopped. (Ryan, that is. Taylor doesn’t doubt that his name also shows up on the trading block, but they’re talking about Ryan right now.)

Ryan looks at Taylor with these matter-of-fact eyes, like he’s already come to accept all the shit that’s coming their way. And like, Taylor gets it, right? It’s hard to keep believing in a team that doesn’t seem to have faith in itself or them.

But Taylor knows his job, and he loves his city, so he does what he does and he scores.

It just—doesn’t fucking seem to matter much.

 

“You and Jordan aren’t…?” Nail asks once, game-tired and only kind of curious, and Taylor throws back a shot and feels it burn all the way down his throat. It’s like fire, like acid, and it’s probably gonna burn just as much coming up as it did going down.

Taylor and Jordan aren’t much of anything these days. It is early 2015, and Taylor is 23 years old and getting too old to be a fool about things.

Ryan wouldn’t ask about them, but then again, Ryan is their fucking rock. He’s steady. Nail is the sun behind a cloud, Taylor thinks, and it’s been cloudy for a long fucking time in Edmonton.

Taylor is no good with metaphors, not drunk, not ever.

“Me and Jordan are fine,” he says. He stares at the liquid at the bottom of his glass, just a thin layer, colorless like water. His ears feel fuzzy. “We’re just taking a little break right now.” He says it flippantly, the way he always does, confident. Like it’s a little bump in the road, and honestly Taylor couldn’t care at all. He’s fine. Everything is fine.

“You know, me and Chucky, it didn’t work,” Nail says into his glass. His eyes are sleepy when he looks at Taylor. “Too hard to hang on.”

And yeah, Taylor gets that. It’s hard to hang on after juniors. Fucking sucks, he knows.

And since Nail is talking, “We’re fighting a lot,” Taylor says, the words coming out a bit slurred. He eyes the bartender and considers getting another drink, but the guy is busy right now, and from the rolling in his stomach, Taylor doesn’t need it either. He sucks in a ragged breath. “Me and Jordan. Shit’s hard between us. Too many losses, too much not clicking. He doesn’t wanna be around me when I get like this.” He laughs, a little hollow. Because Taylor feels too goddamn much, takes everything to heart, and he’s trying too hard. He’s always trying too hard.

Taylor has fallen out of love once before, right before coming to Edmonton, but it doesn’t feel like this. Like he’s hanging onto something with all his might, and they’re picking apart the threads one by one.

Nail reaches over and pats his hand. “It’s okay, Hallsy,” he says.

Taylor’s not sure what exactly is okay, but he appreciates it anyway. Nail is a good guy.

There’s a warm hand at Taylor’s elbow, and Jordan is gently dragging him to his feet, faded cologne and dark eyes and the stubborn gap between his front teeth. Taylor sways into his space, presses his mouth to the warm skin where shoulder meets neck, where Jordan’s shirt has slipped a little. He smells really nice.

“C’mon Hallsy, Yak. We got practice bright and early tomorrow,” Jordan says, a little unsteady himself, and his hand on Taylor’s hip is hot, a brand burning into his skin.

“Yeah, okay,” Taylor says. The hand on his hip is saying _Jordan, Jordan, Jordan_.

Nail follows them out at a distance.


	3. Connor

They call him McJesus.

That’s really all you need to know about him, right?

 

Connor is a good kid, is Taylor’s rookie, though sometimes it feels like he worries more about Taylor than Taylor does him. This isn’t really Taylor’s fault; Connor is just the captain type. He’s always looking out for people.

You can’t really take the Erie out of him, eh?

“You should talk to Jordan more,” Connor says.

Taylor swallows. His throat clicks. He is 24 years old, and he is afraid to talk to his boyfriend. Not that it’s really Jordan’s fault. It’s mostly Taylor, you know? Mostly Taylor and the gulf between them, the snapped answers and moody silences after losses that he’s taken too hard, Jordan’s sad eyes. Man, Taylor never really realized how fucking much _life_ can strain a relationship.

(How could he? Taylor never used to lose before.)

Jordan doesn’t look too closely at Taylor anymore.

Connor is staring at him with his sad eyes, his big sad rookie eyes that make him look like something that Taylor needs to protect, like a baby deer or something. Fuckin’ bleeding heart.

“Eat your food,” Taylor says, pointing at the pasta he made Connor earlier.

He talks to Jordan.

 

They don’t magically start winning even with Connor in the lineup. Their fans expect it, but it takes more than one 18-year-old boy to reverse the course of a franchise, and Taylor has learned some good hard lessons about patience since he came to Edmonton.

But Taylor is good. He’s not like, great, but he’s good. And Connor is good. Maybe this season they’ll make it to the playoffs.

And then Connor breaks his collarbone, fucking smashes it right into the boards during a Flyers game, and that's the end. One more season. Welcome to the Edmonton Oilers.

 

The thing is, Taylor doesn’t need to tell Connor’s story.

They will write stories about him, the future, the savior, the Next One. They will write a thousand and one stories about him. So, you know.

Edmonton is going to be Connor’s story, not Taylor’s.

That’s okay. Taylor isn’t bitter about it, not really, as long as he gets to be there to help. Okay, he’s a little bitter; it’s hard not to be, with the way people have been talking about him for years, the first of their first overalls who turned out to be a big fucking disappointment. So Taylor didn’t end up being the catalyst that they wanted, and people do what they always do: they move on. Hurts a little, he has to admit.

But having Connor in the orange and blue is exciting, helps keep Taylor’s mind on things not named Jordan Eberle and the big fat hole he left in Taylor’s life. And even though it’s obviously going to be Connor’s team in the near future, that’s—that’s going to be okay. It’s okay because

Connor is going to save Edmonton.


	4. Nico

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was mainly written in September before the season started, so from here on out everything is going to be vaguely AU

New Jersey is supposed to be different.

The feel of the team here is different, quieter, and Taylor has gotten used to it after a season of wearing red and black instead of orange and blue. He’s gotten used to Newark too. It’s okay. The Devils want him, at least, which is more than he can say for some other teams, and the losing is something he’s used to already.

They don’t make the playoffs of course, and Taylor could laugh. Some things really never do change.

It’s not like, a good kind of laugh. It gets trapped in Taylor’s throat, and he’s vicious on the puck in the last games of the season, like he could make up for it, everything, this whole fucking team, if he could just eke out one more win. One more win, and another win, and another, the long road to nowhere. To a season that ends in April, anyway.

They finish fourth-last in the league, 27th out of 30.

Taylor goes back north, and he’s in front of the TV, curled up on his couch at home, when the lottery results come out. Jersey. Of course. First overall picks are old game for Taylor Hall.

It’s just, New Jersey was supposed to be different, is all.

Taylor tweets out some joke about adding ‘NHL lottery ball specialist’ to his resume, and inside he is thinking: _Again_.

 

Nico is kind of small.

Taylor isn’t in Jersey like he planned; a cancelled flight means he misses the draft party, and he streams the draft from his house instead. He can see the excitement on Shero’s face, on the faces of all the Devils’ management. This is new territory, for them.

And Nico Hischier is perfect, polite, every bit the humble Swiss boy Taylor’s been reading about for the past few months. He’s got a good build for a kid his size, plenty of room for improvement over the summer. About Taylor’s height.

Still, in front of all those cameras, all those crowds, the expectations and thrill of a desperate franchise, he’s...small.

He’s small, and he stays small and a little tired as the Devils spend like, a week welcoming him.

It’s not quite the hype that surrounded Taylor when he was first drafted to Edmonton, but it feels a bit like it. A first overall pick is big news. Until you get to your third or fourth, that is, at which point it becomes sort of routine.

Taylor flies in to Jersey to meet the kid, and Nico brightens up when he sees him, with the mix of awe and excitement and a little bit of awkwardness that Taylor hasn’t seen in a bit. It’s kind of cute. Taylor figures he’s like, a vet now, 25 years old and a good seven seasons under his belt. Christ, he must seem so old to the kid.

“We’re really glad to have you,” he says, almost a word-for-word repeat of the tweet he fired off the day the Devils drafted Hischier. Leadership. It’s what Taylor’s expected to do.

“Thanks,” Nico says. He smiles a lot. Taylor can already tell he’s sweet, like—like fucking Swiss chocolate-sweet.

That’s not exactly a good thing. In the hockey world, they eat sweet for breakfast. They eat up sweet and spit out bitter old assholes like Taylor Strba Hall, or at least they did in Edmonton.

Nico and Taylor do some publicity stuff together, though not a lot. Taylor doesn’t stick around for long, just makes sure that Nico and his family are comfortable in New Jersey and then meets with the front office for a day or two. Same old, really.

He overhears a lot of discussion surrounding Nico Hischier; it’s hard not to, when that’s all anyone in the front office can talk about. There’s some talk about seeing what Nico has to bring during training camp, how they’re gonna develop him, what are the chances of him returning to Halifax for another season. The Devils haven’t seen him play for them yet, but from the sound of things, everyone already knows what’s gonna happen at the start of the season, unless some freak accident happens.

They’re gonna keep him up, burn the first year of his ELC.

It’s what they do for first overalls.

 

“How’re you liking Hisch so far?” Palms asks during training camp.

Taylor shrugs, wiping sweat off his visor with a finger. He’s in great shape to start the season. “Good kid,” he says shortly. “I like him.”

“I like him too. You guys have good chemistry together.”

Yeah, fucking top-line center Nico Hischier, 18 years old. It’s not gonna stick probably, but Taylor likes being on the kid’s wing, likes his vision and creativity even if he’s a bit of a turnover machine. He’s young. He’ll learn.

He’s nothing like Taylor was at his age, fucking high as a goddamn kite on the rush, cocky as anything as he tore up the ice in Edmonton. Nico is a good boy, quiet and passionate and humble and scary responsible for a teenage rookie sensation. Taylor at eighteen was a fucking mess in a way that Nico isn’t, and that’s—that’s good. Makes Taylor’s life easier, at least. Makes everyone’s lives easier. Everyone’s in love with the kid already.

The first scrimmage they play together, they connect on the prettiest passing play, Nico breaking out of the zone and feeding Taylor the puck through two sticks for a tap-in at the edge of the crease. It is the nicest non-goal that Taylor has been a part of all year.

So yeah, makes sense that everyone loves the kid, including Taylor. He seems good for him, you know?

They get a few in on Schneids, and sure it’s only training camp, but it feels good. Taylor bumps the kid’s helmet carefully with his own after Nico slips one five-hole. First overall, eh?

Nico grins at him, quiet happiness in his eyes, and god he is so fucking eager to please. They always are. Taylor used to be, too.

“They’re gonna eat you alive, kiddo,” Taylor doesn’t say.

Maybe, maybe not. New Jersey isn’t Edmonton.

“You’re doing great out there, bud,” he says instead, quietly, puts an arm around Nico and pats him on the head a few times, a little rougher than he means to.

Nico Hischier fucking glows at that.

He is young and he is happy and Taylor holds him close against his side for another moment.

Taylor hasn’t had a rookie since Connor, and it’s not like he was much help anyway, since Connor was still thrust into the brutal spotlight right away. McJesus coming to mc-save the franchise. Not that this was Connor’s fault. It’s just, Taylor couldn’t save him from having to save the world.

Nico Hischier is not going to save the world, Taylor decides.

Or if he does, it won’t be alone, not if Taylor is here to share the weight of the sky on his shoulders.

New Jersey isn’t Edmonton. This time, it’s not going to be the same.

 

Nico writes a little Player's Tribune article in October, and it's funny and kind of sweet and very Nico, Taylor thinks, until he gets to the part about Nico's first visit to North America.

2010\. Christ. the kid was 11 years old, in the rafters in Ottawa, and Taylor hadn't thought anything about that game, can barely remember it from the blur of his rookie season. Did they even win? Knowing the 2010 Oilers, probably not.

Had he ever glanced up into the rafters during a stoppage of play, without knowing that his future linemate was up there?

_So we just kept trying to look for number 4 on Edmonton._

_We were all like, Wow, that guy is a big deal._

Taylor bites his lip and forces himself to keep reading, even as something tightens in his chest. Number 4. Taylor wears 9 in New Jersey, hasn’t worn 4 in over a season now. And yeah, Taylor used to be a big deal. Kids from Switzerland used to drive from their peewee tournaments in Quebec City to come watch him play in Ottawa, and they used to talk about him, the first overall pick in the draft, their eyes searching for him even though he must’ve been just another blue dot on the ice, same as everyone else.

_It was Taylor Hall._

And it was, wasn’t it? And then seven years later, it was Nico Hischier, and Taylor was there in New Jersey with his team welcoming the new kid, just like he was there on the ice that night in Ottawa, playing his fucking heart out for a kid he didn’t even know yet.

It feels like destiny. Like a new destiny, a sign that this really is a new chapter for Taylor Hall.

The season is starting in two days after a great preseason, and Taylor glances across the room after practice and smiles at Nico.

Nico smiles back, sweet, dimpled, pushing his 90s boy band hair out of his face. His eyes are like two bright stars.

A sudden surge of warmth in his chest takes Taylor by surprise, a feeling that he gets when he looks at like, puppies and little kids wearing his jersey and his prize Xbox. He’d almost call it protectiveness.

Jesus, Taylor thinks.

 

They’re only five games into the regular season when Taylor takes his first fighting major in...in forever, really.

Taylor doesn’t fight. He hasn’t fought since maybe 2011 and Derek Dorsett. Shit, and years ago, when Ryan was involved. Ryan was a rookie at the time, was _special_ , and Taylor—snapped.

Taylor does not snap anymore. Taylor lets other people do the fighting, because, well. Scoring’s what they keep him around for.

But some guy is shoving at Nico, fist in his jersey and two seconds from dropping the gloves. And Nico is—he’s fucking little okay, he’s a rookie and he’s not exactly a runt but he’s still a bit undersized. He talks a lot about the weight he put on over the summer, but he’s eighteen and plays green and they don’t hit you as hard in juniors, not up in Halifax. But in the NHL? Fucking mincemeat, especially a kid as talented as him.

It’s not a fight at first, not a real one anyway, but Taylor gets sucker punched in the face. It’s through a glove and the angle’s bad so he probably won’t have a shiner, but it still kind of makes his eyes water.

And then the pushing and shoving gets heated and the gloves are off and they’ve each got a fistful of jersey, and Taylor knows enough to turn his head a bit so the next punch catches him in the ear and not in like, the cheekbone or nose or anything that’ll _really_ hurt.

Still, it’s a punch to the head, which motherfucking hurts.

Taylor likes to think he gets a few shots in, bare knuckles and sweat and the crowd pounding on the glass, and then the refs are breaking it up and escorting him to the box with his stick and his gloves and his helmet tossed in after him.

The other guy sits in the opposite box, shouting something at Taylor, and Taylor flips him off before checking out his knuckles. There’s going to be some bruising there in the morning, he thinks, flexing the muscles of his hand.

Oh well, better Taylor than Nico, right?

Nico manages to pick up a roughing penalty too, and he sits in the box with Taylor, sweaty hair in his eyes, hunching over a little with his helmet in his lap. He’s muttering English curses under his breath like a pro.

“They let you fight in Halifax, Nico?” Taylor asks, still a little out of breath.

Nico glances up and brushes the hair out of his eyes, and then he smiles, looking impossibly young and like, really fucking sweet. Oh Jesus. He really is getting soft for this kid.

“They never let me fight,” Nico says, and he looks _amused_ now, like he knows why.

Taylor would be willing to bet his entire $6M-per-year salary that no one on the Devils is gonna let Nico fight, either. At least, not unless there’s a damn good reason. Nico is their rookie, is _special_ , and Taylor looks at him and feels something that is definitely protectiveness.

His knuckles are starting to throb a little, and he covers them with his free hand.

Adam takes a look at them after the game like he used to in Windsor, the two of them watching out for each other, and he grins at Taylor and congratulates him on a hell of a fight. To be honest, Taylor doesn’t remember much of it, but he’s glad he put on a show for the home crowd.

“And look at you, caring for the rookie like he’s your own,” Adam says, still grinning, still holding Taylor’s hand, and Taylor clenches it into a fist and feels his knuckles protest just a bit.

“Well someone needs to, right?” he says. “Someone’s gotta show him how things are done.”

Adam pats him on the back of his hand, which lets Taylor know his hand is good (even though the trainers told him that ten minutes ago). There’s a weirdly gentle look on Adam’s face when he says, “No one better than you for him, Hallsy.”

 

There are a lot of things that Taylor knows about Nico now.

Nico likes Swiss chocolate and fondue, has an irresistible sweet tooth. He’s always a little bit late in the mornings. He likes to go fast when he’s driving and faster when he’s in the passenger seat, windows rolled down so the cold New Jersey air can blast him full in the face, hair wild afterward.

Nico has a boyfriend, the second overall pick to Philly. Nolan Patrick. Taylor can see the soft flush on Nico’s cheeks as he grins at his phone in the dressing room, trying and failing to be subtle. It’s cute, like puppy love. And like puppy love, it’s obvious to the entire world.

That doesn’t stop people from comparing them, milking the draft narrative for all it’s worth.

“You okay with handling the press tonight? Anyone bothering you?” Taylor asks. He feels like a dad on his kid’s first day of kindergarten.

“It’s okay,” Nico says. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, road disappearing under their wheels. Probably enjoying shotgun for once, instead of being stuffed in the backseat of Colesy or Pav’s car.

“Alright. Cause I’ve been doing this for years, so if you like, need anything…”

Nico’s hands tighten on his phone, which Taylor notices out of the corner of his eye as he makes a left turn at an empty intersection. “Thanks, Hallsy. They just want to talk about Nolan, you know? Like the draft again.”

“Yeah. Definitely. Gotta get that draft narrative.” And since Nico brought up Nolan, Taylor might as well—“So, you...Nolan...Hot date tonight?”

There’s a beat of silence while Nico tries to figure out what to say, but he half-shrugs and looks at Taylor all innocently, dimples flashing. “Kind of,” he says. “Nolan wants to go to dinner before the game.”

“Cute.” And it is. It’s the kind of cute wholesomeness that people on the street film and post online and that goes viral on twitter so some lonely hockey player named Taylor Hall can watch it on the bus on the way to away arenas.

They finish the drive to Nico’s place in Jersey City in comfortable silence, and Taylor is about to kick him out of the car when Nico pauses with his hand on the door handle and turns back to look at him.

“Hallsy, after the game tonight. I want to bring Nolan to a nice place, but I don’t know—”

“Where to go around here. Right. We can think of something.”

Nico smiles at him, grateful. “Thanks. I really want to, you know, make a good impression on Nolan.” He laughs, a little embarrassed but still so cheerful under his usual gray toque. “I mean, for New Jersey. I want him to like it here.”

That is like so cute, what the fuck. Taylor watches Nico, clenches a tight fist around the sudden surge of envy. Taylor Hall and envy do not mix.

Nico makes to get out of the car again, and Taylor blurts out, “You think you guys can make it work long distance?”

He doesn’t mean to be so blunt, to sound so doubting.

But Nico brushes it off like water off his back, steady and unruffled with the kind of confidence that Taylor has only ever seen in the very secure or the very stupid. And Nico Hischier is not stupid.

“Me and Nolan care for each other. And I think Philly isn’t so far away. Closer than most cities.”

And Taylor thinks: _Jordan_.

It hadn’t worked for them, but then again, Taylor and Jordan had fallen apart long before their relationship was torn apart by distance. And anyway, this isn’t about Taylor and Jordan. This isn’t a fucking Taylor and Jordan kind of story, not anymore.

Nico must sense that something’s off, and he’s a good kid, so naturally he tries to do something about it. “Hallsy, maybe you can bring Rico, if you want. Me and Nolan won’t mind.”

Taylor shakes his head. “I’m good. Thanks, but I’m good.”

Nico looks a little disappointed, but he takes Taylor at his word. “Okay. If you change your mind…”

“I’ll hit you up. Don’t wanna ruin your fun with your Flyer. Have a good nap; you need me to pick you up for the game?”

“No, I'll go with Pav, Colesy, and Bratter.” Nico opens the door and hops out, and then he sticks his head back in for a second. Taylor doesn’t even mind the fact that the door is still open and cold January air is getting into the car. He’s pretty okay with most things Nico does, which is probably why Nico says, “Thanks Hallsy. For everything.”

Taylor watches him walk up to the front door of his apartment, bright and young and hopeful and in love, stupidly, stupidly familiar. He thinks about maybe taking him up on his offer later, but Adam is busy tonight with a charity thing for the Devils, and Taylor doesn’t want to crash the rookie’s date.

And besides, this isn’t a Taylor and Adam kind of story, either.

Somewhere along the line, Taylor doesn’t know what the fuck kind of story the Taylor Hall Experience has become.

He throws his car into reverse and backs the fuck out of there.


	5. Taylor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fairly heavy chapter compared to the others. Again, reminder that this was written pre-Henrique trade, so Adam Henrique is still a Devil (as he is in my dreams. Miss you Rico).

Taylor is drafted on a Friday.

The Oilers pick him from the Windsor Spitfires, OHL Champions, Memorial Cup Champions, and Taylor Hall is on top of the world. First overall. He feels vicious and hungry and _needed_.

He comes to Edmonton like a goddamn rocket, burning so fucking bright and so fucking good, spoon-fed the idea that he’s something special. He’s That Guy. He’s the savior; everyone knows it, even if they won’t say it to his face. Hell, they often do say it to his face. It’s not like the whole fucking world doesn’t know.

And Jordan is there, Jordan with his dark eyes and that stupid little gap in his teeth that Taylor loves with a fierceness that _hurts_ , the kind of love he has to spare when he’s 18 years old with the whole future ahead of him.

“I’m Jordan,” Jordan says, number 14, and Taylor is already half in love with him.

(It has nothing to do with the fact that Jordan wears 14, Taylor tells himself. Nothing at all. And he's right, mostly.)

They get an apartment together, and neither of them knows jack shit about how to live alone, so they’re only marginally better together. They play on the top line, the Kidline, the ones who are going to bring Lord Stanley back to Edmonton. At home, Taylor's things mix into Jordan's things and become Taylor-and-Jordan things, socks and plates and fucking _curtains_ that don't really belong to either of them but belong to the concept of _them_.

It’s not easy, not at all, but it’s home, it’s theirs, it’s Taylor and Jordan and the future.

Jordan is there, in Edmonton, and it really feels like a beginning. It's not though. Not a beginning for Taylor, at least. Just, a beginning for the Edmonton Oilers, sans Taylor Hall in a few years once they've chewed him up and spit him out like something the cat threw up on the carpet.

At the time though, it feels right. After all, Taylor is supposed to save Edmonton.

 

Taylor is traded on a Wednesday, six years later nearly to the day.

 _Expendable_ is the word he keeps hearing. Six years of missed playoffs and tanking for talent, and now the Oilers have all the pieces they need. Except the expendable bits. That would be Taylor.

“Why do you think it was you?” they ask.

And Taylor, still dizzy on the comedown, says, “I don’t know.” He doesn’t know.

(Except he does, because it was always going to be him, the first to come, the first to go.)

He feels unsteady, like—

Years ago, when Taylor was growing up in Calgary, there was a small pond that would freeze over during the coldest Alberta winters. There were always kids skating there, lugging their sticks and nets to the pond for a game of shinny. Taylor remembers the uneven ice under his skates, knowing that there were hundreds of liters of freezing water under the surface. When he was really little, he used to worry about falling through, the ice giving way.

This is what it would feel like, he imagines. Like suffocating, like nothing under his feet to hold him up.

His parents call him, and Taylor answers the phone and spends an hour talking about moving to the States and how he’s okay, yeah sure mom, it’s fine, everything is...It’s going to be fine. No, he’s not going to fall apart. Yes, he knows what he has to do. No, he doesn’t need their help. They very carefully don’t talk about Edmonton.

When he hangs up, he sees that he has 42 messages from various people and three missed calls from Jordan. Taylor turns his phone off.

(He turns it off for twenty minutes before he realizes he’s being dramatic, and then he turns it back on because there’s no running away.)

Henny reaches out too, in the immediate aftermath of the trade. Taylor knows that Adam was close friends with Larsson, forever to be known as that guy the Oilers traded Taylor Hall for, one for one. But Adam is _Adam_ , always a good guy, and he wears the A in New Jersey and cares a lot about people and has a heart the size of like, fucking Toronto, five million people.

He texts Taylor a little welcoming message, something about being happy they’re gonna be playing together again, and Taylor doesn’t even remember what he shoots back. He can read his words on his phone a few days later, but he has no memory of thinking those words, let alone typing them out.

They’re cheerful words though. They’re cheerful words, solid, in a day that feels like everything is slipping.

Taylor is glad that no one can hear his voice through his words. He opens up twitter and crafts something thoughtful, the usual thank-you-goodbye-I’m-excited-for-new-opportunities tweet that’s expected from anyone after a trade.

After he posts, he scrolls through his million notifications, ignoring most of them, until he gets to one from Adam. The timestamp is from a little after he texted Taylor.

_Together again! @hallsy04_

There’s a picture of them embedded in the tweet, 14 and 4, backs to the camera on the Spits bench. Taylor lingers over the 14 for a second. Windsor. He smiles for the first time that day.

He quote-tweets it, _Glad to be back on your side. #Rico_

The rest of the tweets in his notifs go unread. There’s nothing important there, anyway.

And Adam keeps reaching out over the next few days, their conversation going in fits and starts. They kept up, sort of, after juniors. They were buddies after all, super close buddies. But Adam has his own life now, years in Jersey that Taylor never shared.

It’s okay. Taylor has years in Edmonton, years he sank into this team that he’ll never get back.

(He can’t stop thinking about how unfair it is, the team shaking his hand and thanking him for his years of service and then dumping him on the doorstep of yet another spiraling team, now that the Oilers are well into their rebuild. Fucking back to square one. Thanks for the ride; now we don’t need you anymore.)

He changes his social media handles to hallsy09. New number, new city, new Taylor.

The summer is long and kind of awful, and Taylor hears his name more than he ever wanted to, but he knows what’s waiting in Jersey.

The night before he flies in, he finally breaks radio silence and texts Jordan back. Two months is a long time to be a complete dick to an ex, but Taylor never claimed to be a saint. He wishes Jordan luck for the new Oilers season. He doesn’t really mean it.

When he wakes up in the morning, he has a reply from Jordan, and there’s an echoing throb in his chest, the familiar pang of a goodbye.

_Thanks! Good luck in NJ. Going to miss you_

He has one other unread message on his phone, from Adam:

_See you soon! Can’t wait! :)_

 

“You look good,” Adam says. “I like the red. Like Windsor.”

Like Windsor. Like Hall and Henrique and back-to-back Memorial Cups, the last time Taylor felt like he was part of a team that wasn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel. He almost forgot what it felt like to win.

Adam smiles, the kind of smile that reaches his eyes, the kind of smile that Adam just hands out left and right like candy on Halloween, and Taylor— _aches_ , in a place that he doesn’t let himself think about.

“Welcome to the Devils,” Adam adds, and then he stick-taps Taylor’s shin and skates away, big 14 in white on red rippling over his back.

Taylor blinks. There is no 14. They’re wearing their practice jerseys after all, and there are no numbers at all on their jerseys, just the phantom of a number etched on Adam’s back. It’s a memory from...years ago, really. Windsor was years ago.

Taylor blinks again and watches Adam go, feeling kind of empty inside. He doesn’t know what he has left to give.

He connects with Pavel Zacha on a pretty little goal, right over Kinkaid’s glove, and there. That’s what Taylor Hall has left to give, to this shitty fucking team just looking for a spark to drag them out of the deep. If Edmonton doesn’t want him, then fine. Jersey it is. Taylor is a seasoned vet when it comes to losing, nowadays.

It’s been a long time since Windsor.

 

People probably think Taylor is an asshole. They’re probably at least a little bit right.

But he’s good in New Jersey. He keeps his head down and his stick on the ice, and he is good, and things are okay. He stops getting angry tweets from Oilers fans, or maybe he just gets better at ignoring them, and people have more or less moved on from the trade, now that the Oilers are actually fairly decent.

The Devils lose both games they play against Edmonton, both of them in overtime, five days apart. After the second game in Edmonton, Taylor goes out and gets like super fucked up at one of his favorite bars to get super fucked up at, and it’s January and he’s been traded for half a year now and the raw edge of pain feels dulled by time and alcohol.

He thinks he's been doing a pretty good job of not being a wreck after the trade. He's allowed a meltdown or two a season.

Ryan makes sure that Taylor gets back to the hotel okay, and Taylor just remembers like, Adam’s cologne and the sound of Kinker’s voice before he hits the bed.

He’s okay for the next night’s game in Calgary though. Scores a goal even, on the power play off a feed from Palms, and it stands as the game winner. Taylor has got this. He is a fuckup when it comes to Alberta, but at least he is a professional one.

(He’s doing well with blending in, in Jersey, acting like he’s part of the team. But in the dark of his room, Taylor knows that his heart still thinks of Edmonton as his team, and then he grits his teeth and tells himself to get the hell over it. Let go already. But he doesn’t.

Taylor Hall is not a New Jersey Devil. Taylor Hall is an Edmonton Oiler in New Jersey, except he’s not that, either.)

No one asks him how he feels about Edmonton making the playoffs. He can see them itching to ask, but no one does. Small mercies, right?

The last night of the regular season, Taylor is in a bar, and he is drinking.

They’d lost to the Wings in Detroit, flown back home immediately after. Last in the East, fucking right. The Oilers won against Vancouver, 5-2, a good score for a team that’s got playoff hockey in two weeks.

Half the guys go home immediately from the airport, but a small group have joined him at the bar, Adam among them.

They’re at a sports bar. There are NBA highlights on the television, and Taylor watches them for a while until they switch to NHL recaps from around the league. They’re showing the Devils getting outplayed by Detroit, which is embarrassing. That’s Taylor Hall’s team. There are a lot of other games to go through, but eventually they get to the Oilers game, and Taylor sticks an olive in his mouth and leans back in his seat, eyes on the screen. Connor gets his 100th point, he sees, on his 70th assist of his first full season.

Jordan gets his second career hat trick.

Taylor remembers being on the ice with him for the first one. February 2016. Things had already been all but done with them, but those things fell away for a few seconds on the ice. He only remembers the dizzying joy, the dizzying love.

On the screen, Jordan is smiling, smiling, the gap in his teeth visible. Taylor watches as the tiny hats rain down on the tiny rink.

Adam hands him a drink, silent, and his hand is cold. Taylor spits the olive pit into his hand and drops it in his glass, watches it sink. Throws back his drink, throat working, eyes on the olive pit at the bottom.

And later that night, after the highlights are done, after half the guys are gone and Taylor is fucking stone-cold drunk—

“Henny,” Taylor slurs, and he feels Adam’s hand on his shoulder, grounding him where he feels like he’s starting to float away. “Jesus Christ, Henny,” Taylor says, and he doesn’t really know what he’s saying, but Adam’s eyes are dark and bright.

He looks like a goddamn GQ model. He looks like that every fucking day. Like, cheekbones, god.

Taylor thinks about closing the distance between them, about kissing Adam even though he’s smashed out of his fucking mind right now. Maybe _because_ he’s smashed out of his fucking mind right now.

There’s the brief sensation of falling, and he thinks it’s just in his head, but Adam suddenly tightens his grip on the fabric of his shirt to keep him from swaying right off his seat. His hand is right over Taylor’s collarbone. He’s got the side of his thumb pressed to Taylor’s pulse.

“You okay there?” Adam asks, too-sober.

Taylor nods or shakes his head or something until Adam lets him go. It suddenly occurs to him that Adam has barely been drinking tonight, still nursing his second beer even though he must be just as fucked up as the rest of the team over yet another playoff-less season. That’s like, five in a row for Adam, dating back to 2012. It’s not as long as Taylor’s dry period, but five years is still a long time.

Taylor can still sort of hear the echo of _“Henrique! It’s over!”_ from 2012, but it’s been a long fucking time.

“Henny, ’m sorry,” Taylor blurts out, because he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t save Edmonton and he couldn’t save Jersey and he—

Adam sucks in a quick breath of surprise, but he pats Taylor’s arm and says, “Hey, it’s cool, Hallsy,” even though he probably has no idea what the fuck Taylor is even apologizing for. His hand stays on Taylor’s arm though as Miles slides over another drink.

“Maybe he shouldn’t—” Travs starts, because Travis Zajac in dad-mode is serious business, but Taylor knocks it back anyway.

“He’s fine, let him,” Adam says.

When Taylor is done puking in the bathroom, buzzing in his ears, Adam takes him home.

He thinks about kissing Adam again, in the car, but he doesn’t. There’s another olive in his mouth, and after he swallows the edible bit, he rolls the pit around, feels it slide across his tongue.

 

They were good, in Windsor. Adam and Taylor never actually—It felt like things were gonna happen, and they did, on the ice at least. 2009 and 2010 Spits, you know? They _dominated_. Of course they did.

Off the ice, Adam and Taylor were still good. Henny and Hallsy. They were never more than that though.

So yeah, nothing happened between them.

Nothing happened, except the winning, of course.

 

“Keep in touch over the summer, yeah?” Adam says, one moment of quietness before they part ways until September.

There’s no guarantee that Adam is still gonna be here after the summer, no guarantee that _Taylor_ will be here (though they did just bring him in—but there are no guarantees in hockey). But it’s reassuring to assume for a while that some things will stay the same.

“Yeah, I’ll text you,” Taylor says.

Adam smiles, and it really does make his cheekbones look phenomenal, like they did in Windsor. The hug that he offers Taylor is oddly tender, but not in a bad way. More like in a way where their faces are super close together for a long moment and Adam’s warmth is all that Taylor can focus on, before they pull back and Adam flashes him a last smile.

Taylor can’t tell if there’s anything more to that smile, and now is not the time to ask, but he thinks about next season, and he hopes.

The Devils are not his team. All season, Taylor has been a player playing in New Jersey. He is not a Devil. But Adam...Adam makes him feel like he _could_ be, in the future.

 

He remembers exactly where he is when he gets the news that Jordan’s been traded to the Islanders.

He is sunning on the deck at home, facetiming Adam, and Adam is the one who gets the news first. Adam goes quiet on other end, and Taylor is still laughing over some joke he can’t remember anymore, something silly and easy that has nothing at all to do with hockey. Adam goes quiet, and then he says, “Hallsy, check twitter right now.”

Adam is always on twitter. When he first arrived in New Jersey, Taylor told the Devils media team that he should mute Adam on twitter, so he doesn’t need to see him constantly tweeting. That ended up in an article, and there were some good-natured chirps directed Adam’s way when training camp started, and everyone thought it was very cute.

But the fact is, Taylor Hall and twitter do not mix much, not anymore.

Taylor hasn’t been on since he tweeted out a welcome to Nico Hischier the night of the draft. He’s not sure if he wants to be on.

Adam insists though, and he won’t tell Taylor what it is, so Taylor opens up twitter and sees it at the top: Ryan Strome (NYI) for Jordan Eberle (EDM), one-for-one.

God. Jordan in New York. Jordan just over the river, a traffic-filled car ride but nonetheless a car ride away. Just over Taylor’s shoulder.

He stops laughing after that.

 

(Of course Taylor texts Jordan. What the fuck else is he supposed to do?

The sun is suddenly too-hot on his legs, too-hot on his chest, too-hot on his head. Adam isn’t smiling anymore, and Taylor isn’t sure of what to do. He gets up and heads inside.)

 

It’s almost easy to forget about Jordan, when Taylor is busy welcoming Nico to New Jersey and being the face of a franchise again. He’s pretty much saddled with the rookie right away, which is fine by him, seriously. Nico Hischier is a nice distraction, a bright star in the cold fucking sky that is the Devils’ hopes at the end of last season.

Taylor doesn’t really know where he was going with that metaphor.

And then, between the surprise of suddenly winning and his heavier responsibilities with the team, with _his_ team, it’s almost easy to forget that Jordan is practically in his backyard.

Almost.

 

Playing Philly used to be a big deal in New Jersey, Battle of the Turnpike and all, though the rivalry’s died down a bit over the past few years. It’s interesting this year though, because of the first overall-second overall debate.

Over his glass, Taylor watches the first overall pick of the 2017 Draft gesture excitedly, tracing something in the air with his hand. The second overall pick of the 2017 Draft is mesmerized.

Nico is pressed shoulder to shoulder with Nolan Patrick, and they are sneaking smiles at each other, little things that light up their faces as they talk. They are trying to be subtle about holding hands under the table, but anyone with eyes can see what’s going on. Patrick can’t even look away from Nico long enough to take a drink.

Jordan isn’t so far away, closer to Newark than Philly is.

The flush on Nolan Patrick’s face is getting darker. Taylor can’t tell if that’s from the alcohol or from Nico being practically in his lap.

It wouldn’t work with Jordan. Not like Nico and Patrick. Taylor and Jordan were over long before the Devils or the Islanders, lost somewhere between the sharp grinding teeth of Edmonton, six fucking seasons.

“They’re cute, right?” Adam asks, leaning over his own drink. He has his god awful Movember stache on his upper lip right now, and Taylor looks at him and feels an awful lot like Nolan Patrick must.

“Fuckin’ adorable,” he says, and Adam grins from under that horrible stache.

He’s right though, because Nico, whatever he has with Nolan Patrick—It’s good. It’s the kind of good that Taylor wants, that Taylor would fight to protect, if he had it still.

He can’t help watching the two of them, first and second overall, star-crossed.

Taylor thinks about what it’s like to be eighteen and in love, with the eyes of the world on you.

 

(Eighteen and broken-hearted and first overall, and the NHL had been fresh, had been new and exciting and a change for the better. Taylor came to Edmonton a hot fucking mess straight out of junior, straight out of Windsor with the smell of whatever didn’t happen with Adam Henrique clinging to him, and Jordan had been there, a rookie just like him.

It was 2010, and Taylor Hall was eighteen and in love with Jordan Eberle and everyone, _everyone_ was watching the savior.)

 

But.

Taylor was never going to be Connor McDavid.

And Taylor was never going to keep it all, the good and the bad and the ugly, Edmonton and Ryan and Nail and Connor and Jordan, Jordan, _JordanJordanJordan_ —

 

Here’s the thing: Jordan was Edmonton, the way Taylor was Edmonton, the way Taylor pulled the sticky threads of Edmonton out of his lungs one by one until he could breathe again.

And like, neither of them is in Edmonton anymore, but the point still stands. When Taylor dreams about Jordan, he dreams in orange and blue.

Oilers colors. Also Islanders colors, funnily enough.

(This is not to say that Taylor dreams about Jordan _often_. Or like, often enough for it to be weird or creepy, anyway. He’s not still hung up on something that ended ages ago, okay?)

They text a little, when Jordan gets to Brooklyn. That part’s okay.

Jordan is careful, about as careful as he was in the aftermath of their breakup, when it felt like the entire sky above Edmonton was crashing down around Taylor’s ears. It was probably crashing down around Jordan’s ears too, despite them both knowing where things were going. Saying it out loud made it different though, more permanent. Made it real.

Those last years in Edmonton had all been one stupid fucking slide toward the edge of a cliff, a giant sign that says “Road Ends Here.”

But in Brooklyn, Jordan is careful and distant, and he’s just close enough for it to be impossible to ignore him without actually _being_ in Taylor’s life. Taylor isn’t sure how he feels about that. He’s not sure what else he’d prefer, to be honest.

“You okay, Hallsy?” Adam asks.

Adam doesn’t ask this a lot, but Taylor knows when he’s thinking about him, cause Adam gets this super intense look in his eyes, which are intense enough to start. He’s giving Taylor the intense eyes right now, hair styled like way too fucking good for a trip in the elevator after their flight from St. Louis.

Maybe Adam always gives Taylor these intense looks. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and Adam is giving him normal looks, and Taylor feels it like an exposed nerve.

Maybe Taylor’s deflecting in his head, to avoid answering Adam’s question.

“You wanna come to my room?” he asks, as they reach their floor.

(He’s lonely, when he’s back out west. God, he is so lonely sometimes.)

That must be some kind of answer for Adam, because he says, “Sure thing, Hallsy,” and follows Taylor to his door, through the lock rejecting Taylor’s key card twice, and over the threshold. Taylor lets the door slam behind them.

Adam is still holding his bag, which Taylor figures he could’ve offered to put in his room first, but he didn’t. It’s fine though, cause Adam just drops it on the floor—in the corner and out of the way, and he doesn’t even have to use his foot to kick it there like Taylor does after he’s fed up with tripping over his own bag a couple times.

There’s no beer in the fridge, so Taylor digs up two bottles of Gatorade and offers one to Adam.

And then they’re sitting on the bed, right on top of the covers in a Dallas hotel, and Taylor turns the TV on and Adam lets him pretend to watch for a bit before reaching over and muting it when they hit a commercial.

“Boyler asked me to talk to you,” Adam says, quiet, with the lights from the TV playing over his face.

This isn’t really a surprise. Taylor has had ups and downs this season, and he’s been good mostly this season, but recently he’s been a little less than good. No big deal. Boyler is just one of the guys in the room who notices stuff like that, can practically see the shit that’s going on inside people’s heads.

“You can tell Boyler I’m fine,” Taylor says. He reaches for the remote.

Adam’s hand covers his before he can. The tips of his fingers are cold from holding his drink, but his palm is warm, and Taylor lets his hand stay there underneath his.

“It’s not just Boyler,” Adam says. “Travs has been a little worried too, and Pav asked me if I knew what was going on with you.”

God. Pavel Zacha is like pretty much a rookie. If he’s picked up on it...

“And Nico hasn’t said anything cause he doesn’t think it’s his place, but he’s worried too.”

Taylor bites his lip. It’s just like Adam to know how to get to him, to know Taylor in all the places that hurt.

His voice is rough, but he meets Adam’s intense eyes. “I’m fine,” he says, slowly and carefully, so Adam like, really fucking _gets_ it.

Adam lifts his hand up and lets Taylor grab the remote.

“Okay,” he says, and his face is stupidly handsome and too good to be real, how is Adam Henrique _real_ , and Taylor hits the button to unmute the TV and is instantly drowned in the sounds of late-night comedy.

He’s aware of Adam’s profile in the dark, the edges of him in the kinda blue glow of the TV. It feels like a million other nights that have passed like this, the wrong pillows under his head and a strange city outside his window.

A lot of Taylor’s life has happened in hotel rooms. He’s pretty used to it by now.

 

They’re in Dallas tonight, but after they play Dallas they go back east, visiting the Islanders in Brooklyn before ending their roadie.

Taylor feels kinda sick, like he did when he went back to Edmonton earlier this season.

“No hard feelings, love the place,” he’d said, every time someone asked, and they sure did fucking ask. It’s not entirely the truth. No use pretending that Taylor doesn’t feel some small and vicious satisfaction this year, as the Devils fight for a division title while the Oilers talk about maybe drafting Dahlin, yet another first overall to add to their fucking laundry list of them.

Taylor’s not the only one that Edmonton fell out of love with. Hell, ask Nail, first overall five years ago and bounced around the league like leftovers no one wants these days, from Edmonton to St. Louis to Colorado.

But Taylor couldn’t—He couldn’t fucking deal, okay? So he’s in New Jersey, clean on the other side of the continent, and Alberta feels like a really far away dream. Like a once-a-year Western Canada roadie kind of dream.

They’d lost both games against Edmonton this season too, and Taylor is sure there was some very interesting press about that, but he wouldn’t know. He’s gotten good at not reading the words “Taylor Hall” and “Edmonton Oilers” together. Last season was a good lesson in learning his limits.

And now he feels sick again, but it’s not Edmonton he’s facing at the game tomorrow.

It’s just a piece of Edmonton. It’s just Jordan.

Taylor has been good with not running back to Jordan the second Jordan set foot in Brooklyn after the summer. Too good, actually, because now he’s not sure he won’t do something colossally stupid the second he sees Jordan in Barclays. Like, say, forgetting the past three years and running back into his arms.

It’s different than it was last season, when Jordan was just one more piece of the Oilers who didn’t want him, and Taylor could be _furious_ at everyone, all of them all at once.

It’s different now that Jordan’s in pretty much the same boat as him.

Taylor wavers for a second in the parking garage, thinks about going home to his empty apartment and cooking some pasta and chicken for himself, watching some TV and going to bed early and waking up tomorrow and staring at Jordan and the six fucking seasons of Edmonton in his eyes.

He turns suddenly and catches Adam at his car, hands on the edge of his door.

“Hallsy?” Adam says, wide eyes and looking so concerned that Taylor feels all tight in the throat.

Taylor says, “Henny.” Swallows, and says, “Adam.”

 

Adam doesn’t freak out about having Taylor at his place on such short notice. He’s cool with Taylor moodily cleaning out half his fridge, and he passes Taylor a beer, which is loads better than hotel Gatorade. He’s even got these beer glasses that he was keeping cold in his fridge, which feels like a very adult thing to do. Like, who even has time to pour their beer into a glass instead of shotgunning it straight from the can? But Taylor uses the glass.

They play some CoD on the couch, mostly so Taylor can dick around and pretend like he doesn’t know why he’s here. Adam lets him do that for an hour before Taylor finally says, “I haven’t seen Jordan since October, during the pre-season.”

He gets killed on the spot, and Adam is nice enough to pause and mute the game.

This time, Taylor doesn’t run away. Look, character development.

“We met up at his new place in New York. Just sort of caught up a bit, asked how his summer was, how his family was doing, that sort of stuff.” He clears his throat and takes a sip of the beer. “We didn’t talk about him getting traded or about Edmonton.”

Adam shifts so he’s facing Taylor more, body relaxed and open. Listening. Adam was always good at listening.

Taylor dry-swallows. “We don’t really text. Hard to figure out where we stand.”

“Because you were traded.”

“That. But I mean, things were hard with Jordan even before the trade. We stopped living together in ‘15, right before we drafted Connor. Officially broke up sometime in late ‘15, don’t remember when, but it was months before I got traded.”

He’s not being fully honest. Taylor knows exactly when he and Jordan broke up. It was mutual, and they’d both just been waiting for the other to say it. Jordan said it. Taylor fucking lost it.

Not at Jordan—He would never. But something inside Taylor had crumbled, and then Connor got hurt, and nothing seemed to matter.

Forty-two million dollars, seven years, through 2020. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

“Gotta face him sometime, eh Henny? That’s what Jordan would tell me.” He blows out a breath. “Dunno what to say to him, really.”

Adam waits a moment, and when Taylor doesn’t say anything more, he says, “Do you have to?”

“It just feels like, I don’t know. Like I should talk to him, make sure that things are for sure okay between us. Edmonton was, you know, it was this cloud over us, and I guess I just need—”

Taylor needs to know if that’s really it for him and Jordan. If the snapped threads between them are it, without the shadow of Edmonton crushing them under its weight.

“Closure,” Adam finishes for him.

He nods.

“Why’d you two break up? If you wanna talk about it.”

And the thing is, Taylor doesn't really know himself. There was never really a concrete reason they broke up. It was more like they worked for a while, and then they didn't.

“Line chemistry wasn’t working,” he says, and it’s meant to be a joke, but it’s not quite.

No one ever told him how hard it would be, to love someone and know that you can’t make them happy. To feel the reality of your situation and a hundred little things wearing away at the two of you until there’s nothing left to love.

Adam understands. “Happens,” he murmurs.

“First couple seasons, we expected to lose. And the media pressure in Edmonton, we all knew what to expect. None of us were stupid enough to think it would be easy.”

No, Taylor knew it was a waiting game. Couple of bad seasons, draft high maybe two, maybe three years, become a Cup contender. It’s the cycle. And then one year turned into two turned into five, and it got hard to feel anything but that steady downward pressure in his bones, like he was being dragged under.

“After a while, losing...It gets everywhere. Gets in your head. Gets so you can’t think about anything else.”

Adam looks away. “We’re gonna win,” he says softly, and Taylor thinks about being 20 years old and in love with Jordan Eberle and thinking that they were going to win.

Taylor is 26 years old. They haven’t won.

“Sure thing, Henny,” he says brightly, and Adam nudges his hip with his knee, rocking Taylor a little so his beer threatens to slosh over the edge of his glass.

 

Taylor needs his car keys. And some water. And the bathroom. Not in that order.

He blinks at Adam, exhausted from the road and the three beers and the unloading of his heart into the space between them on the couch. Adam blinks back, eyes sleepy and steady, half-smile on his face. Even with the mussed hair, he still looks like he just stepped out of a GQ magazine.

“I’m glad I’m a Devil,” Taylor blurts out, too-honest.

He’s been talking too much about Edmonton tonight, let its shadow creep back over him. But it’s been a year and a half since his trade, and Taylor Hall is a New Jersey Devil.

“I’m glad too, Taylor,” Adam says. His smile is just as nice as it’s always been.

Again, the urge to kiss him rises, but Taylor feels like it’s probably insensitive to do that when he just spent half the night talking about his ex. He doesn’t wanna be that guy, you know? He picks a bit of dog fur off of Adam’s shoulder instead.

“I’m glad you’re talking to me about this,” Adam says.

There’s still more dog fur on his shirt, probably from Penelope whenever Adam dogsits for Palms. Taylor focuses on brushing it off.

Adam doesn’t say anything more, but he rests his hand in the crook of Taylor’s elbow, thumb on the softest bit of skin there, and Taylor looks back into his face, at the patience and kindness and just— _Adam_ , like he’s always been.

They don’t talk about Windsor and what didn’t happen then. They’ve never needed to. That was years ago, lifetimes ago, whole loves ago. And maybe Taylor doesn’t believe in fate or the concept of coming full-circle, but he does believe in the tender look in Adam’s eyes, both of them a little buzzed and a lot tired and so fucking vulnerable.

Adam walks him to the door when he leaves, and he catches Taylor’s wrist before Taylor’s out the door and in his car to start the drive back to his own place.

“Tell me how it goes tomorrow, okay?” he says.

The hall light is on, and Adam stands with his back to it, the light catching his cheekbones and leading a path into the apartment, into Adam’s home. Taylor stares over his shoulder at the shoes lined up by the door, at the wallpaper, at the little potted plant on a stand near the door that seems to serve no purpose except to look nice, because everything about Adam looks nice and inviting and _good_.

“After the game, let me know if you need anything,” Adam says, and he lets go of Taylor’s wrist.

 

Taylor and Jordan grab a light dinner before the game, out in some nice little place in Brooklyn. If they were in Jersey, Taylor would probably bring Jordan to the place he recommended to Nico when the Flyers were in town. But they’re not in Jersey, and Taylor’s not in the driver’s seat tonight. The place that Jordan picks is packed but private, like the kind of place they used to go together in Edmonton.

Jordan chooses the wine. It’s a red, and it goes well with everything on the menu, and Taylor doesn’t drain his glass in one go. He has a game to play tonight, after all.

The food is good, and the small talk is okay. Just because they haven’t seen each other in a while doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten how to click. And Jordan has always been a good friend first, even before he was a good boyfriend. They make small-talk, laugh about some stuff, and even mention Edmonton a couple of times without wincing.

Jordan asks Taylor about the Devils’ redemption this season, and Taylor asks Jordan about how he’s settling in with the Islanders. They don’t talk about how the Oilers are doing or about whether they keep in touch with Connor or Ryan or any of the other guys up there.

Overall, it’s nice. Everything is nice. Jordan seems content.

“So things in Brooklyn are…?”

“Good, yeah. Fucking great, you know. I’ve got good teammates here, and we’re doing good.” Jordan nods. “Saw you were bonding with that Hischier kid on your line. He’s good.”

“Yeah, he is. Nico’s one of our best players. I’m proud of him.”

Jordan talks some about his own teammates, the Islanders’ high-flying offense, and they’re finishing up the wine when he finally gets around to heavier stuff. The stuff that they’ve both been dodging all night, but they’re running out of time, they’ve got places to be and a game to play and lives to move onto and god, they’ve been dodging this for years, haven’t they?

“Taylor,” Jordan says. His eyes are dark, and he has that stubborn little gap between his teeth, a constant that Taylor still kind of loves. “About...the two of us. Are we ok?”

To be honest, they haven’t really been okay since 2015 or so. Earlier, really, if Taylor is counting the beginning of the end, rather than just the end.

Still, six years is a lot of years to love someone, when you’re still pretty young. It's hard to wrestle with that.

“I still think about you,” Taylor admits. “But I don’t think that means anything.”

“I think about you too. And yeah I mean, same for me—But you’re still my friend, Taylor.”

Taylor searches his eyes, thinking about the million million times he’s done that before, on the team plane and in the dressing room and in their bedroom, nose-to-nose and sharing breaths with the taste of defeat and each other in their mouths, and there’s nothing at all for Taylor there. Whatever he and Jordan were, whatever they had, it was born in Edmonton, and Edmonton took it away. They’ve left it there.

Years and years and a love that consumed him, but Taylor Hall is a New Jersey Devil, and the echo of Edmonton is just an echo.

“I’ll text you more,” he mumbles, half-guilty but mostly so fucking relieved.

As they’re paying the bill, Taylor realizes he’s okay. Jordan’s there, and they’re having dinner, and he’s okay.

 

The Devils lose in the shootout, their fifth straight loss. Just a bump in the road. Taylor has a three-game goal streak to start the new year.

He and Jordan chat a little after the game, Taylor promising again to text him. Things are...They’re settled. Jordan hugs him before he leaves, and Taylor tucks his face against his neck and hugs back tight.

 

Adam doesn’t approach him when they get back to the parking garage at the Rock, so Taylor has to hunt him down. He’s at his car again, just sitting in the driver’s seat with the keys in the ignition but not turned on, apparently waiting for Taylor. The doors are unlocked.

Taylor climbs into the passenger seat.

It’s dark inside, kind of freezing too without the heating on, and Adam is coldly beautiful in the dark until he turns and flashes Taylor one of his smiles. It’s completely stupid to say this, but the temperature in the car immediately goes up a few degrees.

Or that’s just Taylor getting warmer, whatever.

“You were dialed in today,” Adam says.

“Yeah.” Goal and assist and while his shootout attempt was stopped, overall not a bad night. One point is better than no points. He glances at Adam out of the corner of his eye. Plunges in. “Dinner today was good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We talked about a couple things. He’s settled into Brooklyn, got his own place out there and everything.”

“You gonna visit him?”

Adam’s eyes are shaded under his Devils snapback, but Taylor doesn’t try to read them. He keeps his own eyes straight ahead, nothing but concrete wall in front of Adam’s parked car.

“Don’t think so,” he says.

Beside him, there’s a little ragged breath from Adam. “So you and him aren’t still…?”

 _No_ , Taylor thinks. No, Taylor hasn’t been in love with Jordan for a while. Taylor is 26 years old, and he doesn’t have much of his life figured out, but he knows this much: that there’s a difference between loving someone and loving the memory of someone. That it’s easy to trick yourself into loving the memory of being in love.

Because Taylor did love Jordan once, and he _really_ fucking loved him, but that was a long time ago. And loving Jordan isn’t the same as loving the idea of Jordan, the idea of the Oilers, the idea of winning. It’s gotten all twisted up together in his head.

But Taylor fucking—He pulled those threads apart, undid the tangled knots, and it all leads to—

Adam smiles.

Taylor kisses him.

 

Leaning over the gear shift with the hand brake digging into his hip, hand on Adam’s stupidly nice jaw, Taylor thinks—Taylor thinks—

Taylor doesn’t think.

Adam kisses like he’s been waiting a long fucking time for it, undercurrent of rawness but still oddly careful. He puts a hand on Taylor’s chest, just grounding him there, in Newark under the roof of his car, and Taylor lets himself not think for once.

They don’t get very far in Adam’s car, just making out for a bit like they’re teenagers, knee-jerk for Taylor as he breathes messy and hot against Adam’s mouth before pulling back and looking at him, really looking at him.

Adam’s snapback is pushed up from where it bumped against Taylor’s face. His mouth is dark, probably red, though Taylor can’t see for sure in the dark. And he’s grinning a little, what little light there is catching his eyes, the wet shine of his teeth where Taylor had run his tongue over just a few seconds ago.

It’s been a year and a half since _together again_ and _glad to be back on your side_ , almost eight years since their magical second Mem Cup.

But Adam...Adam looks at him like Taylor is still seventeen in Windsor, on top of the world.

 

 

They don’t spend bye week together. Nico runs off to Philly for a bit before going back home, like Switzerland-home, jetlag be damned. Adam goes with Schneids and Palms to the Bahamas, and Taylor meets up with some buddies from Edmonton down in Florida. It’s a good week.

They don’t move in together. Taylor spends a lot of time on Adam’s couch, spends a lot of time tripping over Adam’s shoes and watering Adam’s plants when Adam asks him to, but he goes back to his own place at the end of the night. Usually. About half the time. Okay, a little less than half the time.

They just. They play hockey.

They play good fucking Devils hockey, in-a-playoff-spot Devils hockey, and Taylor doesn’t think at all about the Edmonton Oilers. He still texts Ryan and Connor and sometimes Nail and definitely Jordan, but then he looks up from his phone and sees red and black and thinks about Jersey ice in front of a crowd that loves them.

It’s good, in New Jersey. Taylor gets lost in the unbreaking rhythm of Taylor-Nico-Palms or Taylor-Nico-Bratter, day after day after day on the top line, same guys on the ice with him, Hynsie yelling from the bench.

They win some games. Adam kisses him after each one, and after the ones they lose, too. There are less of those though, something that Taylor’s not used to, but he fucking loves it.

In a couple months, there might even be playoff hockey. Taylor smiles. He’s been smiling a lot more these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


End file.
